Overview

On March 25, 1996 Senate debate began on the Omnibus Parks Bill. This
package contained 30 or so good bills plus the Utah anti-wilderness
bill S.884. A filibuster ensued, and a cloture vote on the filibuster
was taken on Wednesday April 27. The vote was 51 vs. 49 against
cloture, whereas 61 votes would be required to stop the filibuster.
S.884 was dropped from the Omnibus Parks Bill!

Although Senate Bill 884 was defeated by filibuster on the Senate
floor in late March, the issue is by no means dead. The Utah
delegation continues to perpetuate a number of amazing untruths.

Select the category you wish to review, or simply scroll through
this document.

It seems that Senator Bennett, along with Senator Hatch,
Representative Jim Hansen, and Governor Mike Leavitt, have
engaged a massive "black propaganda" campaign to discredit the
environmental movement's recent huge Senate victory. The attempt
is to create a false impression that people of Utah don't want a
generous BLM wilderness bill, and that the wilderness preservation
movement in Utah is basically a hoax perpetrated by wealthy out-of-
state environmental groups.

"Black" propaganda consists of a barrage of misinformation,
misrepresentation, and outright lies directed at sympathetic media
outlets. The strategy is to so overload the media with such stories
that any cries of protest by the parties being smeared will be ignored
or even contribute to the impression that they are guilty as charged.

Specifically, Bennett, Hatch, and Hansen have made the following
misleading or false claims as presented below. Information
presented here is the result of research into the Congressional
Record.
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Environmental groups and other supporters of the 5.7 million acre
wilderness proposal were paid to appear at wilderness hearings and
to write letters and make phone calls to Senate offices.

The following is a direct quote from Senator Bob Bennett, in a
KCPW interview on March 27, 1996:

"Even if the majority were in favor of the 5.7 [million acre wilderness
bill] in that process [last year's wilderness hearings] would be very
misleading [sic], and I'll tell you why. As we went to the 5 locations
that we had hearings at around the state, we had the same people
testifying at each one. They would get in their busses and caravan
with us. SUWA [Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance] paid people to
come in and testify."

Direct quote from a letter from 300 "Utah Democrat and
Republican elected officials" read aloud on the Senate floor by Orrin
Hatch during debate on the Utah wilderness bill on March 25, 1996:

"The environmental community, both in and outside Utah, was well
organized and paid its partisans to testify. They even rented
buses and vans to transport these people from location to location."

A direct quote from Senator Orrin Hatch in a Senate floor speech
on 3/25/96:

"We had almost the same people at every location, demanding to
testify, saying the same things each time, and making it look like
they had more numbers than they really did."

THE TRUTH

No one was paid a dime to attend a single hearing in
the state of Utah. The supporters of 5.7 million acres of wilderness
were in the majority at every hearing, even those in rural counties. In
Salt lake City, the hearing certainly was 90% or more in favor of 5.7
million acres of wilderness.
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The "wealthy" national environmental groups spent "millions" or even
"tens of millions" of dollars on advertising in an effort to manipulate
the senate vote.

Direct quote from Senator Orrin Hatch during the Senate debate on
the Omnibus Parks Bill amendment on March 25, 1996:

"The fact is that we are being sandbagged not so much by our
colleagues but by a well-orchestrated and well-financed campaign
staged by huge, huge national environmental lobbies who are
pursuing their own national agenda."

Direct quote from Senator Bob Bennett in a KCPW interview with
Blair Fulmer on March 25, 1996:

"I will confess I think that in terms of the PR battle over the Utah
wilderness, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has probably won
that battle, at least for now. The full-page ads that they have run and
the tremendously powerful national campaign for which they've paid
-- I do not know how much it cost; my guess is that it's in the millions
of dollars that they've spent on this -- they're certainly capable of
raising millions of dollars...."

Note: According to Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance executive
director Mike Matz, SUWA's total annual budget for 1994 was under
$700,000. The majority of this budget is devoted to SUWA's
considerable overhead expenses and the salaries for full-time staff.

From Senator Frank Murkowski's speech during Senate floor
debate on the Omnibus Parks Bill on March 25 1996:

"This type of big business, well-financed campaigns that they
establish are really not constructive.... This is really a battle between
some of the well-financed elitists and the people who live in the State
of Utah.... Unfortunately the playing field does not happen to be level.
We find ourselves being tied up by a group of elitists. This debate is
really a difference of opinion between the well-financed elitist lobby
who wants all or nothing and the rest of us who are looking for
resource protection and balance..."

THE TRUTH

Wouldn't it be wonderful if even one green group had
anywhere near the resources of the extractive industries? This
victory was accomplished simply because people care about wilderness, and don't want to see
it lost.
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The majority of the people of Utah do not want more than 2 million
acres of Wilderness.

Frank Murkowski stated in a Senate floor speech on March 25,
1996 stated:

"As we have seen, the intensive lobbying by a relatively small
segment of motivated extremists who say 2 million acres is not
enough, does not represent the prevailing attitude in Utah by a long
shot..."

A statement by Governor Mike Leavitt, in a letter to Senator Hatch,
and read by him into the Congressional Record on March 25, 1996:

"Please accept this letter as an explanation of the public response
which my office received with respect to this [Utah wilderness] issue.
Personnel in the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget read,
recorded, and responded to each of the 3,031 individual letters which
were received last year and also categorized the 551 individual public
testimonies received at the public hearings held in Utah last spring
and summer. In examining this information, 51% of these letters and
testimonies were in favor of no wilderness designation whatsoever or
something less than the 5.7 million acre proposal. Certain groups
throughout the state have publicly stated that support for 5.7 million
acres of wilderness has ranged from 70% at a minimum, to upwards
of 75%...this is most definitely a misrepresentation of actual public
sentiment."

THE TRUTH

In June 1995 the Governor's office and Planning and
Budget issued a summary of the written and oral public input to the
Governor during the spring 1995 wilderness review process which
showed that 71% of all public input to the Governor's office did support the 5.7 million acre proposal. Actually the true
number was higher than this because 331 comments in which the
individual did not specify ANY exact acreage figure were arbitrarily
dumped by the Governor's office into the "less than 2 million acre"
category -- whereas videotape of the wilderness hearings reveals that
many of those individuals who did not verbally specify an acreage
figure were wearing "5.7 Wild" buttons.

The Governor's office "adjusted" the figures to suggest that a majority
of public comment did NOT support more than 2 million acres. This
magic was accomplished by the following manipulations:

1. The Governor's letter categorically excludes a 14,184 signature
petition supporting the 5.7 million acre wilderness proposal (H.R.
1500). This exclusion changed the ratios of support for various
amounts of wilderness to: 46% supporting more than 2 million acres
(of which 43% supported 5.7 million acres); 43% supporting 2 million
acres or less; and 10% "unspecified."

Since most of these "unspecified" testimonies probably supported
MORE than 2 million acres, the truth is that even without the
14,000 petition signatures, a solid majority of the public comment
supported more than 2 million acres.

2. The Governor then assumes that the 10 percent of remaining
"Exact Acreage Unspecified" public comment should be included in
the "less than 2 million acres" category. Voila! Suddenly a majority
of the public comment is opposed to more than two million acres!
This is certainly inaccurate and disingenuous.
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Public lands in Utah will not be commercially developed if they are
not designated wilderness, because they are already protected from
development under existing law.

Senator Bob Bennett stated on the Senate floor on March 25,
1996:

"There are 8 million acres where there will never be a strip mall or a
hamburger stand or any other kind of commercial exploitation in the state of Utah. There are 8 million acres right
now in national forests..."

THE TRUTH

Senator Bennett is referring to National Forests! This
has nothing to do with the current battle to preserve 5.7 million acres
of BLM land, or his effort to "protect" only 1.8 million acres! Even so, there is record
of chaining and clearcutting on national forests. And what about the
proposed Kaiparowits coal mine provided for by S.884?
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"Under the terms of the Wilderness Act, prior activities are
grandfathered in and allowed to go on. If you had a grazing permit,
according to the act, you can continue to graze. If you had a mining
permit, according to the act, you can continue to mine. In fact, we
know that once something is designated as wilderness, all that goes
out the window; it is walled off; no human activity whatsoever
regardless of what may have been going on there before."

THE TRUTH

There is no basis for this kind of emotion-laden
statement by Mr. Bennett. No precedent exists to indicate that
grazing and mining will be curtailed in wilderness areas. This is the
sort of statement has been heard over and over from the extractive
users of public lands. It is not true.
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"Our release language does contain a sentence that has raised
questions. This sentence says: "Such lands shall not be managed
for the purpose of protecting their suitability for wilderness
designation.... This sentence in the substitute does not foreclose
a Federal manager from managing an area of land to protect its
wilderness character. This sentence does not prohibit a BLM
district manager from managing an area of land for its wilderness
values. Statements to the contrary are false." [Emphasis added
to clarify apparent intended semantic differentiations.]

THE TRUTH

This sounds like complete double-speak, and it is. In
a March 18, 1996 letter to all members of the U.S. Senate, law
professor Charles F. Wilkinson (the leading legal expert on
wilderness "release" language) specifically identified the Utah
delegation's "release" language as "hard release."
Wilkinson wrote:

"The proposed language is a stark contrast to the
"soft release" language included in past wilderness bills...the
difference between the standard "soft release" and the
unprecedented "hard release" now proposed for S. 884 is
fundamental. With "soft release" the agency may use its
management discretion to protect roadless areas important for
wildlife and to create opportunities for primitive recreation and
solitude. "Hard release," as proposed by the Utah senators, would
prohibit the professional federal land managers from protecting these
values.... "

In a November 9, 1995 letter to Representative James Hansen, the
Director of the Bureau of Land Management stated that

"Fully 99
percent of wilderness study acreage not designated as wilderness
under [S. 884] would be made available for hardrock mineral
development... and for new oil, gas, and coal development."

This new language in S. 884 is indistinguishable from the language in the
original S. 884 referred to in the Director's letter.

In testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee, Sylvia
Baca, U. S. Department of the Interior stated on June 29, 1995 that

"The bill [H.R.1745] would create the ironic situation that
management inside wilderness could be less protective than
management of public lands not designated as wilderness."

The 1866 Mining law was repealed in 1972. This old law had a provision called
RS2477 allowing roads to be built between points of travel. The new law grandfathers in
old roads constructed prior to 1972. Under this loophole, Utah special interest groups and
county commissioners are plowing streambeds and cattle trails into roads in potential
wilderness areas so that the areas can't be considered for wilderness.

Colorado has eight outstanding road claims. Utah has 5,000!

Representative Jim Hansen stated to a group of Utah wilderness advocates, hikers, and
professional guides in Washingon DC
on March 25, 1997:

"If these road claims are disallowed, rural county schools will have to helicopter their kids to school."

THE TRUTH

No one in the environmental community wants to disallow legitimate RS2477 road claims. Kids are
not being helicoptered now, and will not be in the future. However, it is the special interests who
are making these road claims under a 130 year old loophole, trying to preclude any more land from
being considered as wilderness.

Jim Hansen then said:

"I've hiked that land more than any person in this room..."

THE TRUTH

Jim, I'd love to believe this (Fred). But if you are making statements like this to
this audience, I can't help but wonder what you are saying to uninformed members of
Congress from other states.
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These are but a few of the dozens of statements of distortion and
misinformation being stated on record and broadcast in the media by
Senator Bob Bennett, Orrin Hatch, James Hansen, and Michael
Leavitt.

If this seems outrageous and inappropriate, take the initiative to
complain, as loudly and publicly as you possibly can, that the truth is
being deliberately twisted. Tell your friends, call your Representative
and Senators to find out when they will be holding public meetings.
Make an appointment. A five minute visit or a question asked during
an open meeting can have a big impact. And especially, write a
letter to the editor.

If these distortions and misrepresentations go uncorrected, the public
will perceive that the Utah politicians are essentially correct in their
insinuations and allegations. On the other hand, the simple act of
correcting these deceptions will further discredit the delegation with
its own propaganda.